Hands Full of Chestnuts
by niver
Summary: Let the screwed up world let him be his screwed up self, so that no one would forget about buttons and marbles and chestnuts and hot desert sand. /Shikaneji/ /angst/ /character death/ /oneshot/


**A/N: I'm so very sorry. I didn't intend for this to be so angsty, or for Neji to come across as so … yeah. If anyone's interested, I'll put up a short oneshot explaining what actually happened, because while Neji will convey to you the general idea, there are quite a few extenuating circumstances. Basically, (the villain/antagonist/killer) isn't a total psycho.**

**Hands Full of Chestnuts**

Neji and Shikamaru sat underneath a magnolia tree in full bloom, the fallen blossoms scattered around them like soft white seashells. Shikamaru was involved in a sudoku puzzle, pen flashing faster than the eye could follow as he scribbled in numbers. Neji watched this familiar act with fond amusement, until movement flickered in the corner of his eye. Curious, he turned, and saw the dark figure of Uchiha Sasuke standing a short distance away.

Neji was reminded that he had to get some marbles from Sasuke, so he jumped to his feet and ran toward the Uchiha. Sasuke was slowly backing away, expression frightened, but Neji paid no heed to this. He eventually caught up, and with a quick dart of his hands yanked the marbles away from the other. They gleamed a delightful blue colour, but each had the slightest flaw of a dark hole. As Sasuke disappeared Neji turned back to Shikamaru to complain. Instead of the magnolia tree, he saw a turbulent river. Shikamaru stood on the opposite bank, eyes empty, and mouthed something. Neji couldn't hear him over the water's rush, but instinctively knew what the other was saying: "there's a desert between us." 

No, there was a river. Neji had to get to Shikamaru, marbles in hand, and explain to the Nara that it was a river. So he sent chakra to his feet and stepped onto the water, but like a rug pulled out by a prankster – _the blue marbles warm in his hand _– the water yanked his feet from under him. Frustrated, Neji began to slowly wade through the freezing water, which got deeper and deeper the further he went. Much to his annoyance, the river only got wider as he went further, and Shikamaru was still calling it a desert, and Neji had to get across quickly before something horrible happened.

With this turn of thoughts, the river began to warm up, warmer and warmer and warmer, until suddenly it was boiling. It frothed a violent red for a moment before settling into a golden brown, and then it wasn't moving anymore, because it wasn't water, it was sand. "There's a desert between us," murmured Shikamaru, and in the sudden silence of the sand Neji could hear it perfectly. Shikamaru was right, wasn't he? This was a desert. Neji had to get there and apologize – it seemed to be of the utmost importance that he tell Shikamaru he was sorry.

Yet no matter how hard he struggled, the sand wouldn't move, the heated grains irritating his skin, while Shikamaru stood and watched. Neji opened his hands to claw at the constricting substance, and the marbles disappeared. Before he could panic about that, Shikamaru began to slowly approach the edge of the desert, and Neji opened his mouth to call out a warning – but sand was filling his mouth, choking him, he couldn't breathe, couldn't scream – he had to get out, and it was a river, no it was a desert, but he could still swim, couldn't he? He began to jerk around, trying to turn onto his back, clear his airway, swim to safety. He turned and turned and turned until he turned over in bed, awake.

As he panted quietly in bed, Neji stared blankly up at the ceiling, making no noise other than his quieting breaths. In the silence Neji was alone, the comforter strangling him, sweat glued to his skin. He wanted to go back to sleep, go back to Shikamaru, but at the moment his mind wouldn't grant him that reprise. Instead it began to list silly things, like comrades' ninja registration numbers –_ 012607, 012606, 012601_ – and the names of the Daimyo for the five main countries. He lets his mind play as it wanted. Anything was better than nothing, because the nothing in his brain ate away at any something he had left, which wasn't much of anything.

This was giving him a headache.

Slowly, carefully, as if every move caused him pain, Neji sat up, threw off the comforter and swung his legs over the edge. He looked at them, dangling there, and pretended they were worms that a group of fish would come eat. Just eat him right up, pull him into the water, clean him of his filth, the scum that had collected on the edges of his mind as if it were a pond. He needed to clean that, to purify his mind, burn away the excess, cauterize the gaping wound before the dirt got in … he needed a shower.

Still moving with care, Neji got up and began to make his way toward the bathroom. As his feet passed over the old hardwood floor of the apartment, Neji pretended he was on stage and that a whole world was watching. It made him pick up his step, straighten his posture, tilt his chin in a dignified manner. Now he glided across the stage, and everyone followed these movements with awe and adoration.

Then he hit the tile of the bathroom, and abruptly the illusion vanished. He hovered there, muscles tensed as he held himself perfectly on his toes at the divider, a swimmer posed before the dive, before crossing the imaginary line. Neji had resisted playing pretend before with unconscious ease, but now it seemed as if he fought too hard to keep the games controlled, let alone at bay. This in mind he watched every movement, every tangent of his mind, like a hawk. He didn't relax until he was under the soothing spray of the shower.

Normally his showers were cold, as a matter of discipline. Today he turned the knob to hot and melted under the burning water. Neji enjoyed the feeling of heated needles hitting his skin but bouncing off as if he were invulnerable. Invulnerable – that would be nice. Nothing would hurt him, not kunai, not shuriken, not jutsu, not senbon – burning senbon were hitting him now, and he was fine. Their points slammed against him over and over and over, like a shower of hot sand slamming against him – _sand was filling his mouth, choking him, he couldn't breathe, couldn't scream_ – and there was another fantasy turned to dust. Neji threw himself out of the shower, gratefully accepting the steamy air.

As the steam cleaned his pores, got rid of the sand that had undoubtedly collected there, Neji moved in front of the mirror/medicine cabinet. He bypassed the fogged-over mirror to swing open the door it was set on, and then regarded the cabinet's innards. With speedy accuracy his eyes landed on the two shaving razors that sat on the bottom shelf. Neji didn't grow facial hair very quickly, but it had been a good four weeks since his last shave. He reached for his razor, purposefully trying to ignore the other – but trying was the operative word, because his magnet gaze dragged over involuntarily toward the magnetic razor. The pale hand that was hovering over his razor gently carried itself over to the second, picking it up.

Neji regarded the razor with absorbed interest. Its owner was too lazy to clean it properly, and tiny hairs were caught between the blades. Neji slid off the protective cover and rested a gentle finger on those bristles, while emotion welled up inside of him. This would be his final link, the connector, the bridge.

He could cross that bridge, couldn't he?

Furious intent caused his hand to clench and chakra to focus, until with a cracking noise the razor shattered. Neji released the pieces, watching them clatter noisily in the bowl of the porcelain sink. Eyes narrowed in concentration, he began to sort through the plastic until he got to the glinting metal. He picked up one of the blades, and it was such a tiny thing, small enough to hide under his tongue. He was tempted to try, but reminded himself of his purpose.

Hands shaking, he bared a wet wrist, and angled the blade – and that angling caused it to catch a reflection. Neji was positioned so that the achingly blue sky outside was staring back at him from the blade, such a beautiful, distorted blue – _the blue marbles warm in his hand _– and he sat the blade back down. He couldn't, not with that accusing blue slapping him in the face. As he backed away from the sink a maelstrom of emotion tugged at him, pulling him around and around until he faced the shower, which was still on. Distractedly, Neji shut off the water, watching the remaining liquid swirl down the drain, until a knocking filled the apartment.

Neji glanced up, eyes unfocused. Someone was knocking on the front door. It could be a whole platoon of people. It could be his family, his friends. It could be his pallbearers, there a little early.

They should wait a little while, Neji thought dazedly. He still needed his box.

And then his run away senses returned like sheepish dogs, carefully nudging at his mind. Neji squeezed his eyes shut, and with their reopening activated his Byakugan. As the world rushed to invert itself, entirely at his command, he zeroed in on the front door. His cousin stood outside, clutching a basket, expression anxious. It was Hinata, but for some reason his mind replaced her name with 012612. He deactivated his dōjutsu.

_Why would you do that?_ he asked his mind. _This isn't dull mission report duty. This is Hinata. Hinata. Why would you do that? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with me?_

Neji continued his mental tirade as he moved back to the bedroom, the air drying off his body as went. He didn't feel like talking to Hinata much at the moment. His eyes could see better than hers, after all. He could see how the conversation would happen, picture the worry overwhelming her eyes until it welled up like blood from a cut and poured down like diamonds.

Neji knew every last detail, and he was only interested in reliving one thing over and over again at the moment. So he pulled on a pair of pajama pants from a messy pile in the corner and settled back into bed, ready to begin, before reactivating his Byakugan. Hinata had continued her persistent knocking, eyebrows furrowed as she glared at the door. As he watched her quietly pretty face, twisted in concern, he was struck by the realization that Hinata was a hundred times better than him. He deactivated his Byakugan, listening to her knocks, and gave a distant smile. She _was_ better than him; he would never quite so persistently chase down and comfort someone like she was trying to. With that thought curled up in his mind like a snake on a warm flat rock, he shut his eyes and began to fade, the knocking noise no longer intrusive but welcome, a sound of love.

The pounding on the door took on a pattern, matching the pounding of the sun onto his head. Every place were the rays hit throbbed, but it was pleasant. Neji was once again wrapped up in sand, though this time it was comfortable. He watched the empty desert around him with a smile, until the knocking stopped. With it a hush fell. Neji tensed. This was a dream, he reminded himself, but the heat was now painful, the sand too tight, and he knew that the events that were about to happen had more stake in memory than imagination. He closed his eyes as a high noise filled the air. It was like a cicada, but there were no cicadas in the desert. What was it?

He reopened his eyes, and saw Shikamaru only ten feet away. The man was perfectly still, except for his eyes, which flicked back and forth as if he too were trying to find the source of the noise. Shikamaru turned, but didn't see Neji, eyes continuing their rapid journey back and forth, to the point where it was sickening to watch, indecisiveness turned revolting. Neji wanted to tell him that it didn't matter, that the predators would finish off those desert-cicadas, but he couldn't speak. Shikamaru was mute too, as when he opened his mouth to say something to someone it released no noise. Or maybe Neji couldn't hear him over the cicadas, which were starting to screech far too loud, louder and louder, making Neji's teeth rattle and his ears ache. He watched as Shikamaru began to desperately twist and dodge, as if the noise were an enemy nin attacking him. Critically Neji reviewed the other's performance, and gave it a four out of ten.

Shikamaru exploded.

Thousands of cuts appeared all over his body, and strangely quick red sap began to pour out of his limbs, which were now tree branches. Shikamaru screamed, matching the cicadas perfectly in pitch, so Neji gave that a ten our of ten. It was very important that he judge Shikamaru fairly, though he didn't want people to think he was biased. Biased people were eaten by cicadas, weren't they?

Luckily the cicadas were dying. A thousand hungry birds, heard and not seen, just like the cicadas, were swooping in on the similarly invisible prey and gobbling them up. The birds shrieked and shrieked, but at least the cicadas had stopped, which was Shikamaru's cue to be quiet. And he was, though the faintest gurgles came from his still form, so Neji took a point off: nine out of ten. Out of thirty, that was twenty-three. Not bad. Shikamaru's prize was red sand, red sand that surrounded him in an uneven halo. Neji was upset, because that redness was Shikamaru's prize and he was too tired and lazy to gather it up. So Neji tried to get the birds to do it for him, to eat the redness like they ate the cicadas, and to feed it back to Shikamaru as if he were their flightless baby. The birds paid no heed to Neji though, which was understandable because he still had no voice.

"Naruto! Naruto! Naruto! Naruto! Naruto!" A voice shouted from nearby. Neji turned, hoping that Naruto would give him back his voice, but Naruto was too busy. He, Sakura and Sasuke stood a few feet from Shikamaru, backs turned to Neji. Well, Sasuke's face was turned, because he was lying down just like Shikamaru. That was odd. Sasuke wasn't lazy like Shikamaru; why was he napping?

"Naruto! Naruto! Naruto! Naruto! Naruto!" Repeated Sakura, turning enough so that Neji could see her. She looked horrible, dirty and upset, and her hair was sporting some ugly new red streaks. Naruto didn't move, shoulders shuddering like a thousand of Shino's insects were about to burst from his skin. "Naruto! Naruto! Naruto! Naruto! Naruto!" Sakura screamed again, and Neji wished he had his voice so he could chime in. Why wasn't Naruto responding? Sakura was so worried, her eyes filling with tears that were too blue to be real.

Naruto finally moved, crouching down beside lazy Sasuke. Sakura mimicked the movement, watching Naruto, who suddenly laughed. "I solved the puzzle, Sakura! I solved the puzzle!"

"What puzzle?" Asked Sakura, voice distorted as if her earlier screams had maimed her vocal cords.

Naruto held up a paper. "The sudoku puzzle! The final row was nine-five-two-eight-seven-one-six-three-four! You know what that's a code for?" Sakura didn't know. "Sasuke needs new eyes if he ever wants to see the light again! Neji thinks my eyes are pretty good, don't you, Neji?" Naruto turned as he said this, waving happily at Neji, who nodded in agreement. Naruto returned his focus to Sakura. "Right now Sasuke's eyes are no good, they're just buttons! So can you give him mine? They're marbles. Marbles are good, because they don't need to be sewed on. You just pop them in; I already have holes in them for sticks to keep 'em in place. Sounds good, right?" Sakura nodded.

"Then ready, set, go!" Naruto shouted.

The pair were then a flurry of movement, but what stood out the most to Neji was Sakura's hand with the scalpel, because it flashed like the razor blade, and it moved so seamlessly with Sakura's hand movements. In fact, Neji was quite certain that the scalpel was _part_ of her hand, and her fingers were scalpels now, and they were cutting and more sap was around, which was silly because they were in a desert, not a forest. And then Naruto was just as lazy as Sasuke, though at least Sasuke had rolled over to face Neji, revealing his new pretty blue marbles. They looked nice, so Neji smiled, but then he frowned.

Now Naruto couldn't see. Naruto had to see, he had to see. "Naruto has to see." He announced, his voice back. Sakura ignored him, standing up to go use her scalpel-fingers to help Shikamaru. Neji repeated himself, louder. Sakura ignored him again, and then there was a jump in time, because Sakura was suddenly back next to Naruto, cradling two chestnuts. Neji thought they looked delicious, but was then reminded that he was hungry. He hadn't eaten in a while, had he? His stomach started to hurt, a different pain than the hot sand or the sight of all that wasted red sap, because it was a real hurt.

He awoke slower this time, the hunger pains spiking out randomly. Unlike his last dream he was anxious to escape this one, clawing himself up the steep slope to awareness. But the sleep clung to him, like the steam from his shower, like syrup made out of sap – _all that wasted red sap_ – and he fought desperately against it. Finally, breaking the surface of his muffled thoughts, he pulled in a gasp of air and opened his eyes. Quite a bit of time had passed while he'd slept, but he noticed that idly, distantly, as time didn't mean much of anything to him anymore. Was Hinata still there, he wondered. He activated his dōjutsu, and there she was, firmly seated outside his door on top of a sleeping bag, drinking from a thermos and reading a book by the hallway light. Looking into the basket for the first time, he saw that it was filled with food. She had come prepared for a long stay.

The sight of the food reminded him of his hunger, but he still didn't move to go to the kitchen. He was too busy thinking about Shikamaru, an energy-consuming process these days. As his thoughts tiredly ran through the rote of Shikamaru – _he doesn't like boiled eggs, remember that _– he continued to watch his cousin. She was so sweet, he thought. All that food, some of his favourites, all made up for him so that he wouldn't starve away in here, curl up like an old leaf into a dry old husk, parched lips reciting "Shikamaru, Shikamaru, Shikamaru" over and over again like a prayer.

"Die thinking of me? I'd say you're sweeter than her." Shikamaru's voice had the same lilt, the same dry, sardonic quality, the same measured pace. The familiarity of it dug into Neji's chest much more than a difference would, cutting open his heart and shutting his eyes. He was hallucinating now, but he wasn't exactly surprised. He swallowed to wet his dry throat, and felt a dull burning brand the tear ducts in his eyes. He didn't cry though; if Shikamaru was already calling him sweet, he didn't want to give the other the chance to call him a softie too. Still, he had to respond somehow. If Shikamaru's voice had crossed a hundred voids – one of them Neji's head – to speak to Neji, then he better make the visit worth it.

"You're lucky that was an 'I'd say' and not a definite accusation of being sweet, or I'd be kicking your ass right now." Neji's voice echoed oddly in his ears in the otherwise silent room, and he found it comforting, as it made this conversation that much more real. He heard a chuckle, that smoky laugh that always sent tingles down his spine, and opened his eyes. An ache much more powerful than usual to see Shikamaru, to touch him, to have him exist, tugged at Neji. Of course, the room was empty, the walls still bare after Neji had torn down the photos and smashed them, the broken dresser huddled dismally in the corner as another victim of his rage, the bedroom door off its hinges completely and lying on the ground from his arrival home weeks ago and his eagerness to fall into bed and sleep away forever.

It didn't matter though. Neji could picture Shikamaru down to the littlest detail. After all, how many times had he admired that body? Stroked that face? Devoted what seemed to be a desirable eternity to nothing but Shikamaru, himself, and a falling world of white bedsheets, the clatter of shōji tiles and banter that was exchanged as rapidly as the beating of his love-struck heart? It all seemed so stupid now, the goddamn poetry Shikamaru's quick wit or soft touches could inspire in him, carrying his heart higher than the clouds the other was so fond of. What had that been worth? So that now, he could open his eyes and instead of an empty room, see the curves and angles and lights and shadows that made up Shikamaru's face?

Though as long as Neji could see the Nara's cocky smirk, his arched eyebrows, the straight nose, and those eyes, the helpless rage was worth it. After all, those eyes … Shikamaru had beautiful eyes. Neji knew that if someone were to look at the two of them, he would be the one whose eyes they would focus on. But those people would be missing out on the fascinating shape of Shikamaru's eyes, or the deep brown iris, a chestnut brown – _thought they looked delicious_ – that pulled in secrets and reflected them back twice, all the while hiding their own. Neji could spend his entire life staring into those eyes, and he would have, if he hadn't blinked.

After the split-second darkness, Shikamaru was gone, and Neji was once again alone. He looked over at the dresser, and shame suddenly welled up in him. He remembered his earlier fantasy, up on stage, everyone watching, and wondered what that everyone would think of Neji taking out his anger on innocent furniture. How ashamed, disgusted, horrified would those eyes be? And then the idea of eyes following him everywhere and the resulting paranoia surpassed the shame in intensity, so he crawled out of bed and quickly made his way into the kitchen.

He was still hungry, but there was no food. Most had gone rotten, the rest had already been eaten. He ignored the putrid stench of the peaches on the kitchen table and searched the cupboards until he found the bag of rice. Despite his hunger, the idea of eating anything but plain rice while his lover ate dirt and worms made his stomach turn. So he gently opened the bag, and searched for a pot to boil it in. However, as he raised himself from the crouch with a pot from the lower cupboards in hand, he knocked over the bag. A soft noise, a static-like murmur late at night or a softer version of rain on a tin roof filled the air. Neji watched as the rice poured out like a shower of tiny, hard maggots from a gaping wound and frowned. He was out of practice, to be so clumsy. Setting the pot aside he knelt, the hard grains digging into his knees – _sand was filling his mouth, choking him, he couldn't breathe, couldn't scream_ – and stared at the rice.

Perhaps an appropriate punishment for being so clumsy would be to pick up the rice grain by grain. "That will teach you to watch what you're doing," Neji murmured, and the sound of his voice now sounded much more grating than it had a few minutes ago. Distantly he wondered if Hinata could hear his … well, she'd think they were crazy ramblings, and maybe they were, but grating or not the sound of someone else being there gave him a sense of balance. As long as someone else was there he had someone to lean on, to prop up, to play off against. Still, if his someone else was himself then that left no one to be him, and even after everything Neji was terrified at the idea of disappearing.

He needed to be alive, he needed to feel the world around him, needed that aching blue and needed that warm chestnut – _ marbles and chestnuts, crazy ramblings, crazy, crazy, crazy_ – and he needed to be there so that someone else wouldn't ooze into his place in the world like a yolk sliding into a wrong shell. As long as Neji was alive no one else had to be him, and that was good, because who would want to be him – _crazy, crazycrazy, crazy_ – and why would Neji want someone else to be him?

His head hurt.

His hunger pangs were fading, but the pain in his head grew larger, the moon eclipsing the sun, and he had to screw his eyes shut and clench his fists. As always when these headaches struck, he knew he just needed to lie down, so he did, and the tough rice clung to him like a million stubby fingers and Neji felt safe despite the uncomfortable position.

Those fingers – _scalpel-fingers_ – rocked him off to sleep, the rocking of a boat, pulling him down a gentle current, the water slipping and sliding like Shikamaru's fingers through Neji's hair, the gentle tugging at his scalp and the pleasant buzz like a few sips of alcohol warming him from his belly outwards, Shikamaru's hands tracing that path, trailing more heat in their wake like the prow of a boat slicing through warm butter, sliding down the frying pan that fizzled like the arousal spilling out of Neji's eyes like sparkles lighting up the sky, fireworks exploding in multicoloured star-bursts, explosions like the short cries of passion escaping lips that formed words like eyes and hearts and all of it is for Neji, all of it poured into his ear like drizzling syrup flavoured like strawberries, that sit on his tongue and make a gentle frisson encompass his body like the warmest and most comfortable of arms, like the home he found in the apartment that he was lying on the floor of, the grains of rice little nubs that press into his skin a million times over, little kisses from the maggots, and would he really have eaten them, choked down the baby flies because he was afraid of baby chickens though that wasn't right because it was something else and he wished Shikamaru was there to explain it to him, because there wasn't much Neji didn't understand but whatever he didn't Shikamaru could explain in such a nice, non-condescending manner, the words dancing through Neji's brain like a funeral but no that wasn't right either, Shikamaru's words weren't a funeral, they were a birth, a birth of a million new ideas, and Neji saw them now, Shikamaru's life, a million ideas conceptualized by an unrivaled genius, and it was so sad that the world would be loosing that mind so early, but what the hell, Neji didn't care about the world, he cared about himself, imagining Shikamaru in all his glory leaving that bitter taste of sleep without brushing teeth lingering in the back of his throat or maybe he wasn't asleep but just unconscious or lost in a stream of thought, a small rowboat in a candy-floss river, the candy-floss a vivid pink, reaching out with tentacles to pull Shikamaru down, the thrashing noises softened by childlike giggles, selfish childlike desires, was it so selfish to want Shikamaru by his side now, because Neji was lost without him, and he needed his anchor to his boat and he needed that anchor to not be swallowed whole by a deep dark ocean of sticky red sand, he needed Shikamaru, he needed Shikamaru, _I need Shikamaru._

Neji awoke crying.

He rolled over, away from the pile of rice, the grains still clinging to him, tears coursing down his hollowed cheeks. Neji couldn't do this. He couldn't live without Shikamaru, without someone who loved him so thoroughly and so honestly. So what if he was afraid to kill himself? That was bull. He was sleeping so much and eating so little, taking those baby steps into the warm embrace of death that would hopefully be nothing like the crushing one of sand, all because he saw the colour blue and freaked out. Revulsion at his weakness tore through him like a kunai slamming into flesh, and a splattering noise filled the air, and for one deluded second Neji thought he had actually been stabbed, until he saw that he had vomited. He groaned, trying to fight back the tears and the nausea, pulling himself away from the puddle of sick, curling up in a ball, tearing at his hair.

He just couldn't do this. He was a mess. He was pathetic. He wasn't self-righteous enough to find Sakura and hurt her in revenge (because what would that do to Naruto?); he wasn't brave enough to kill himself (because what would that do to everyone who loved him?); he wasn't smart or strong enough to find a way to fix this (because he'd actually considered learning Edo Tensei to get Shikamaru back, and wasn't that stupid?) and most of all he wasn't good enough to have stopped it all from happening in the first place (because wasn't he right there when it happened?)

These dark thoughts slammed into every corner of his mind, his brain an academy student and the darkness a jōnin, a beat-down, pure and simple. Neji groaned again, almost keening. Pathetic – _crazycrazycrazycrazycrazycrazy_ – lying on his kitchen floor, breaking down, falling prey to a darkness he thought he'd long since left behind, all because his boyfriend had died? Because his boyfriend had been buried without his eyes? Because his close friend now saw the world from those same eyes but still didn't see Neji like his boyfriend could?

Neji chuckled humourlessly. Shikamaru had barely been rotting a month now and already Neji was looking elsewhere? No. He wouldn't put that on himself. Neji knew exactly what he wanted from Naruto: a recognition of how much he was suffering. But Naruto was all wrapped up in blue-eyed Sasuke and brown-eyed Naruto and green-eyed Sakura, who hadn't changed much at all except for the fact that Neji would never be able to recall the exact shade of green, since Sakura would never look him in the eyes again. Eyes, eyes, eyes. Even as a dōjutsu user Neji had never thought as much about eyes as he did now. Eyes, eyes eyes, eyeseyes, eyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyes ...

Neji fell asleep again, but this time he did not dream until the very end. It wasn't much, just a couple sentences from the trash bin of his memory, tacked on as an afterthought by a Universe weary with him.

"The thing I find most attractive about Neji, huh? You guys mean you can't think of a few hundred reasons just looking at him? Heh. Though I might add it really isn't worth the trouble– unf! That was my spleen, Hyuuga. Be careful. Anyway … jeez, this is troublesome. Anyway, I think what I find most attractive about him is that even though he's had to put up with quite a bit of shit in his life, he's always managed to look good through it, like a sexy iron will. Eh, laugh all you want, it's hard to explain. But to me, he's the statue that withstands the storm – hey, Naruto, if you think that's poetry, you should hear what Neji says about me– spleen, Neji, spleen. That's important, you know."

Neji reluctantly awoke away from Shikamaru's voice, eyes fluttering open. How long ago was that? It couldn't have been too long, since Shikamaru had been comfortable in teasing Neji so publicly. Neji remembered how annoyed he'd been at the Nara's candor, and frowned. What wouldn't he give to have Shikamaru mock him, as long it meant hearing his voice again. Neji closed his eyes, ignoring the mix of unappetizing scents and the discomfort of the rice clinging to him, and waited.

The silence dragged on, however, without a peep from hallucination-Shikamaru. Neji reopened his eyes with a bitter smirk. Seemed that even from beyond the grave and using old material, Shikamaru still knew how to kick Neji into a state of activity, because he now knew he couldn't give up and die on the cold kitchen floor as long as Shikamaru thought so highly of him.

It took a minute for Neji to climb to his feet, as his limbs shuddered from the effort. He hadn't realized how weak he was. Perhaps he shouldn't have used the Byakugan so much after so long without eating or training. And that reminded him. Was Hinata still there? Neji hoped so, because his current state of activity wouldn't be worth anything if no one was there to catch him when he fell. Already he could feel the slipping, like flesh sliding off bones, the darkness of either possible unconsciousness or the scum of his pond-mind, a metaphorical acid burning the back of his throat.

He needed Hinata to spit that acid at, because truth be told, the truth needed to be told, since no one outside of Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura – _012607, 012606, 012601_ – and Neji knew how exactly the musical chair of eyes occurred, and no one but Sakura – _012601_ – and Neji knew the darkest secret of the whole affair. And that acidic truth ate at his tongue as he staggered to the front door, and he distantly worried that the acid would eat through the muscle and stop the truth from coming out.

Neji reached the front door and stood there, one hand on the knob and the other on the lock. It seemed that a thousand years ago he had hovered between the bedroom and the bathroom, the hardwood and the tile, the temporary illusion and the constant delusion. Maybe it had been a thousand years ago, and maybe he had slept that time away, and maybe he was now a ghost. He hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. Did he want to leave this behind, the destroyed apartment that connected to his rage, the empty rooms that represented his heart, the chaos of the kitchen that stood in for the insanity in his mind? Did he want to leave behind the place where he was safe to wallow and be depressed without the hard looks and the expectations to get over his pain like any good shinobi would?

The hesitation dragged out into a minute, then two, then five. He continued to stare at the apartment, as if he expected Shikamaru to waltz out of a room, all apologies for making Neji wait. Of course, that would never happen, would it? It was about damn time Neji realized that Shikamaru would never be coming back, and the temporary hallucinations could never compete with the real thing. Neji laughed, a choking laugh that dissolved into a sob. The tears didn't last as long this time, and the hand that had loosened its grip on the doorknob – _statue that withstands the storm_ – tightened again.

That was it. Shikamaru wasn't coming back, and if Neji needed a screwed up apartment to be his screwed up self, than it was a disservice to Shikamaru. Since the Nara couldn't be there to remind people of the unfairness of his death, Neji would just have to do it for him. Let the screwed up world let him be his screwed up self, so that no one would forget about buttons and marbles and chestnuts and hot desert sand.

The acid burned hotter, an urgent reminder to get moving.

Neji slid back the bolt.

He turned the knob.

He opened the door.

Immediately, the weeks of half-crazed dreams, starvation and anger fell away like shōji pieces off an overturned board, clattering loudly in the emptiness that immediately poured in. On the other side of the door Hinata stood, looking surprised, then upset and guilty. Neji could only begin to imagine how bad he looked, and it gave him vicious satisfaction. If he had this effect on Hinata, who was simply feeling guilty because she hadn't staked out his home earlier, he could only imagine what Naruto or Sakura would think.

Sakura. 012601. Scalpel-fingers. Hands full of chestnuts.

The acid heaved, and the words poured out almost involuntarily.

"I watched it, you know. Shikamaru … Shikamaru was still alive. She could have saved him. But Naruto needed to see, so she made a decision, and she chose Naruto."

**la fin**

**Thoughts?**


End file.
